HELP! I’m Financially Responsible But It’s SO Boring

Doing all the right things with money, but it just feels... boring? You're probably in the Mundane Middle, and it might be the most important phase of your entire wealth-building journey. We walk you through four tips to stay motivated through steps six and seven of the Financial Order of Operations, including real milestones to aim for, a simple crossover point formula to calculate when your portfolio starts outworking you, and a happiness maximizer exercise so you can take control of your financial future. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jump start your journey with our FREE financial resources⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reach your goals faster with our products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Take the relationship to the next level: become a client⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe on YouTube for early access and go beyond the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Connect with us on social media for more content⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DRINKAG1.com/MONEYGUY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:30Brian Preston?

  Boring. Let's be honest, when you're doing the right things with money, it doesn't always feel exciting, especially on those ladder steps of the foo, which can take a while to get through. So what do you do when things start to feel slow and boring? But what do you do?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Brent, I am so excited because today, we're going to be talking to those of you in what we like to call the mundane middle. It's your middle of career, you're saving regularly, likely around step six or seven of the foo. And we're going to give you some guidance for what you should do in that boring between, including some milestones that you can aim for and even celebrate through the process.

• 1:06Brian Preston?

  So I'm Brian, he's Bo, and we're financial advisors here to guide you through that mundane middle to get to your great, big, beautiful tomorrow. And with that, let's dive right in.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  So Brian, when we say the mundane middle, what we're actually talking about is this part of financial wealth building that feels monotonous and slow. I've already said it's around step six and seven, and it just feels like, man, man, I was go, go, go, go, go, go. And now it just seems like I'm wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 1:44Brian Preston?

  Well, I mean, look, in the early stages of the financial order of operations, there's a lot of stuff going on. You're trying to get your emergency funds set up. You're trying to get that free money from the employer. You're protecting yourself from paying 20 plus percent. So then when you start getting to steps five, six, and seven, I get it. It is going to feel slow, even if you're doing the right thing. And that's what I've made the analogy before, but I think it's important to kind of bring it back because I think this will give you a visual that will help. It might make you a little hungry too, is that when you smoke meat, if you think about some of the best eating, especially if you're from Texas, you're from the South, we love our barbecue where we do it low and slow. And you know, and a lot of people, you know, when you think about this.

• 2:27Brian Preston?

  A lot of barbecue and other things is humble meat. A lot of millionaires come from humble beginnings. And I know when you're trying to sprinkle that special stuff that makes that meat turn incredible, you hold it on with some yellow mustard.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 2:41Brian Preston?

  That's the discipline of your financial life is going to help hold the salt and pepper, which gives it that delicious taste. That's, that's the compounding interest. So then as you start cooking this slow and slow and low, just like you're building wealth, it takes a while to get there. You're going to notice this weird thing that happens when you're cooking meat, just like when you're building success. When the temperature gets to around 160 degrees, it's going to hit what's called the stall.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:07Brian Preston?

  So a lot of people will try to speed this up. They might even make mistakes like take it out, microwave it and do other things. No, that's a complete disaster. You just have to be patient. Let the special stuff work that's happening behind the scenes and don't rush the process. It's the exact same thing with wealth creation and wealth building. It's okay if it's slow and low and developing because we're going to help you through with some tips. So you don't try to microwave your wealth creation and make mistakes with crypto and all the distractions. You're actually going to focus on what matters and use these tips.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  So the question becomes, what can you do during the stall? What can you do during those times when it feels like, okay, I got a lot accomplished early on? And I know where I'm going, but right now, again, it is this mundane middle. And so we're going to share four tips with you that we think will help. And the first one, it might seem intuitive, but so many people forget to do this. We want you to right now, look how far you've come in your journey. Because if you are in the mundane middle, it means that you have already knocked out some pretty big planning areas of your financial life.

• 4:19Brian Preston?

  Well, I mean, a lot of us come from humble beginnings and you know, you look at to fun and then you go through a periods like where we just had an inflation run up in the 2020 and beyond. And you start saying, man, this thing's running away from me. You can start feeling overwhelmed. Stop. It's going to be okay. Remember, time is going to be your superpower because Compounding growth. Look back, log into those retirement accounts. Think about just how magical. It's one of those things, I even use this in Millionaire Mission. When I try to show people how much of their account is actually the growth versus their contribution. Guys, you got to see this. Look at this. For somebody who starts saving when they're 20 years of age, they run the potential that 95% of their account value in retirement is going to be from the growth.

• 5:02Brian Preston?

  Even if you're one of the typical Americans and you start saving and investing when you're 30 years of age, it's going to be 89% growth. That's what is amazing about compounding interest. And that's why we can say things like for a 20-year-old, it's $95 a month. For a 30-year-old, it's $270 a month. A little bit goes a long way, but the thing is you have to start the process and then always be buying.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  And so again, this is about remembering, because remember, there was a point in time where you first opened your Roth IRA and it had a $0 balance. Or when you first signed up for your 401K and there were $0 in there. If you have moved any length of period since then, you likely have some money in there. So take a moment to celebrate that. Take a moment to log into the accounts, to view the accounts, to see where you are. And then what we want you to do is we want you to take that, we want you to bottle it up. We actually want you to take it even a step further. Because we think that at least annually, you should be tracking your net worth, not just logging into a account to see how many dollars I have in a single place, but when you think about your overall enterprise, we want you to list out, okay,

• 6:10Speaker 02

  what are all the things that I own? What are all the things that I owe money on? And what's the difference between those two? And when you take what you own and subtract out what you owe, that gives you your net worth. What that is, that's basically your starting position. Or if you've been doing this for a while, it's not your starting position, it's your current position. It is showing you where you are right now, today. If you do that, it's going to be amazing. Holy cow. Right now, today, I've maxed out my Roth IRA. I've got 7,500 in there. This time last year, I had zero. That is progress, worth looking back. On and worth celebrating.

• 6:48Brian Preston?

  Look, I look at the dash, the net worth as your dashboard and you're going to be the CEO of a multiple seven-figure enterprise. So you need to start acting accordingly. That's why if you want to know exactly the tool that Bo and I are using for our net worth, we actually have a great tool. If you go to learn.moneyguy.com, this is the actual net worth tracker and tool that we personally use. And what I like about it is, look, I like to see where's that, where's the debt at? What's been the change in the last year? How are my emergency reserves holding up compared to what the investment performance compared to my, what I made through my labor? All of this is available as a dashboard view. And then think about step seven, where we're talking about the three bucket strategy. Are you after-tax assets,

• 7:31Brian Preston?

  tax-free? Are you tax-deferred? All of this is in your purview, so you can be better with your money.

• 7:37Speaker 02

  How on earth can you know if you are ahead of the curve, on the curve, don't even know where the curve is, if you don't know where you're starting? So if you've not started tracking your net worth, start right now, today. And even if you're someone who says, oh, well, guys, I just graduated, I have student loan debt, my net worth is negative, I'll wait till I get, don't do that. Because again, even if you're going from really, really negative, to slightly less negative, that is still an improvement, that is still worth tracking, that's still worth notating. So it's at number one, no matter where you are in your journey, notate how far you've come and the strides that you've made. And then, we're going to take you to step two, step two, now we want you to calculate, okay, I know how

• 8:19Speaker 02

  far I've come, now I want to think about where I'm going. What is that great, big, beautiful tomorrow that I'm actually working towards?

• 8:27Brian Preston?

  Yeah, I think when we all feel overwhelmed, I've already told you, go back, look backwards and see how far you've come. But now let's look forward and say, hey, remember, you potentially are a billionaire of time. There's a lot of potential for that component of time to really grow your assets. And look, don't let it just be us telling you this from our lips to your ears. I want you to go to moneyguy.com/resources and look at our compound interest calculator, because you can then put in your specific numbers, see a visual, see it calculate. What saving a little bit more is going to do for your future? Let's actually visualize this and actually see what the results of your hard work are.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  What I think is wild is if you remember back to math class, or if you've ever plotted something out and you've looked at an exponential curve, it seems like it's increasing slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. And then all of a sudden it ramps up. You see this hockey stick type improvement. Oftentimes, when you are in the mundane middle, you might be right there at that threshold. It's felt slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. But you're at the point where if you can continue to give it time, if you can continue to let your money work for you, the exponential growth, the slope of the line increases, and it gets really, really exciting. And if you don't believe us, let me walk you through a really quick example. So if you go to moneyguide.com/resources,

• 9:49Speaker 02

  we have this compound interest calculator that is incredible. So let's just say that you're someone and you're starting out with $10,000. You've been, that's how far you've come. You were at zero, now you're at 10,000. And let's just assume that you believe you can earn on average an 8% rate of return. And let's say that right now, on a monthly basis, you're saving $200 per month. Brian, how's that sound to you?

• 10:13Brian Preston?

  $200, sounds great.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  200. So let's say that, okay, you know what I want to do? I am a 30-year-old. I'm going to work for another 30 years, and I want to see what this money can turn into by the time I turn 60. I put in my email address, hit calculate, and watch what happens. Now you can see that exponential graph curve that we talked about. And early on in your journey, years one, two, three, four, five, the majority of your account value is contributions. The first five years, your contributions are 22,000. The account's only worth 29,000. But as you begin to move through time, what you can see is that the growth gets further and further away from your contributions.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  That is literally compound interest, the eighth wonder of the world, taking hold. And you can see that for this person who started with $10,000 and is just saving $200,000. $200 a month in 30 years of doing this, they will have over $400,000 saved up just by doing that. Pretty incredible.

• 11:18Brian Preston?

  Now, Bo, I noticed that on year 15, there's a blue line there. If you highlighted that blue, what is that that's showing us?

• 11:24Speaker 02

  This is the boiling point. This is an exciting, this is where your account has now reached a point to where it is actually growing even faster than your saving. The, the rate of return on the assets you've built up is now saving even harder than you are. It's an incredible milestone. It's an incredible thing to celebrate. And if you play with a compound interest calculator, you can see exactly where your boiling point is.

• 11:49Brian Preston?

  So by the way, if you want to see how comedic our content team is too, they didn't say bowling point. It actually has bowling.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 11:57Brian Preston?

  There where they're taking advantage of my trouble to pronounce things so that you can be better with your money. So that's why I'm look, what I also love about this, Bo, shows you if you can just do a little bit more $100 a month, $200 a month, or even it breaks, it calculates because you said, hey, what if I want to have it be a millionaire? What if 400 plus $1,000 wasn't enough? We back into that math. There's a lot of functionality here. Get out there today. Money got.com slash resources. Go check out our compound interest calculator.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Or if you're someone who maybe you have a young person who's asking for advice, maybe you have teens or children, or maybe you just have friends who haven't caught the personal finance bug. This is a great tool to share with them to show them just how powerful their dollars can be. So tip number one was to celebrate how far you've come. Tip number two was to celebrate and think about, okay, where am I going? What am I projecting moving towards? And then tip number three, and this is one that I think is maybe even the most valuable inside the mundane middle. We want you to celebrate the many milestones.

• 13:01Brian Preston?

  Yeah, this could be its own show. Matter of fact, it has been a show when we talk about these milestones, but we felt like it was so powerful. Let's get in there. So we lean into this celebration. So you actually know what some of these stops of success are going to be in your journey.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Well, there are these big milestones, right? Financial independence and there's reaching the boiling point. There's these, but then even inside that journey, there's little mini pieces. There is little, they might not be, yeah, they're, they might not be the huge ones, but they are certainly worth celebrating. So we're gonna walk you through a few that we think could be valuable. And the first one, I still remember when this happened for me in my life, it was the very first, you know, I started contributing to a Roth IRA pretty early and I was doing 50 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month. But 50 bucks a month was not getting me maxed out. And I remember, I still remember the very first year, I think it was 4,500, $5,000 a year, where I maxed out my Roth IRA and I was like, holy cow, that's something to celebrate.

• 13:57Brian Preston?

  Fast forward to 2026, the maxing out Roth number right now is $7,500 a year. If you're, if you're under 50 and that's $625 a month. If you can reach that, it is a time for celebration.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  I love it. And then another thing, if you are someone who is married or there's a spouse, you can also celebrate that point in time where you both max out your Roth IRAs. Again, we're talking about many milestones to keep you motivated. Another milestone that's even worth thinking through is when you hit that next tier of savings, and we say tier of savings, we're talking about whatever tier that you're defining. So for you, maybe it's when, hey, I'm saving a hundred bucks a month. And then I, I go from saving 100 to 500, or maybe I go from 500 to 1,000. If you can celebrate when you're making those changes, it's gonna give you that motivation to keep changing and keep improving, moving forward.

• 14:51Brian Preston?

  I still remember when, when my wife and I crossed a thousand dollars a month.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  It's a big deal.

• 14:56Brian Preston?

  We went out and we went to our favorite restaurant to celebrate. Cause remember, these are milestones to celebrate. So actually go out there and celebrate when you cross into these points, cause it is that important.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Another one, and, and we all remember this, I've been saving for any point in time. When your savings, when your investments, when your portfolio adds a new digit. So, okay, I saved my first 10 bucks and then I saved my first 100 bucks. And then that 100, I save a thousand bucks and then my thousand turns into 10,000 and then 10,000 turns into 100,000 and then the 100,000s turn into a million, turn into the two comma. Every one of those milestones, every one of those steps is worth celebrating, is worth saying, "Man, it's incredible that I made it to this new tier, this new portfolio value." That is an accomplishment.

• 15:46Brian Preston?

  That's why I love it when people go in the money verse and they share like when they've crossed into six figures or even crossed into seven figures. Definitely celebrate those moments because it is really powerful when you start seeing your army of dollars work just as hard as you do with money.

• 16:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now, then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Kayak searches and compares hundreds of travel sites. But unless I repeat the word kayak, kayak thinks you won't remember that. So kayak asked me to say kayak as many times as possible. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kayak. Kai. Ooh. Ak. Kai, Kai, Kai, Kai, kayak. Kayak, kayak, kayak. Search, compare and save on your trip. Kayak, got that right.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  Now, it's interesting, Brian, we get this, I don't want to say hate, no, it's hate. I'm gonna, I'm gonna appropriately call it hate. There's a lot of people out there that say, "Okay, guys, yeah, big deal. You save a million dollars doesn't matter anymore." Well, you know what's true? You can't get to 2 million unless you get to 1 million first. And you can't get to 3 million unless you get to 2 million. So celebrating adding these digits, your portfolio value growing is moving you to the place that you want to be. And one of the ways that you get to influence how quickly that happens is based on your savings rate.

• 17:32Brian Preston?

  Yeah, so let's, let's actually do this. Let's look at what does it take to reach that first crucial million? If you're saving a thousand dollars a month, yeah, it's going to take you a little over 25 years. But you have control on this. If you want to choose your own adventure and make this happen even faster, if you increase your monthly savings to $2,000 a month, you can make it there in as fast as a little over 18 years.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  That shaved off like seven years of saving just by increasing.

• 17:57Brian Preston?

  And by the way, it doesn't. I started off with a few hundred bucks. I remember we crossed into a thousand. Then I remember we went to 2,000. This doesn't have to happen all at once. We're just making an example here is that when, if you don't like it fast enough, you can speed the process up through your choose your own adventure. If you're doing $3,000 a month, it's under 15 years. If you're doing 4,000 a month, it's a little over 12 years. You can see that you can speed this process up by controlling how much you contribute.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  What I think is wonderful is oftentimes in our financial life, we end up stacking these. So, okay, maybe in my 30s, I'm saving a thousand dollars a month. But then maybe I get into my 40s and I've still been saving the thousand dollars a month. But if I can increase my savings by another $2,000, if I can get to the point where I'm saving $3,000 a month, and if I'm just thinking through that, that's maybe maxing out my 401k and then maxing out both the Roth IRAs. And all of a sudden I'm saving that $3,000 a month, that is another million dollars that I'm adding on top of the million dollars that I started building in my 30s. And so this stacks through time as you're beginning to move towards your financial independence number.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Again, it's all about celebrating these small, little, mini, micro wins along the way. Cause another one we see, Brian, that I think is worth celebrating is when you're doing this and you begin saving and you've been stacking, but then the actual portfolio itself, it's able to grow by more than your saving. Like, okay, I'm going to save 100 bucks a month or I'm going to save 500, but then the portfolio actually does that on top of what you're saving.

• 19:32Brian Preston?

  A lot of these earlier steps was going to putting more and more on you. And what I love about what we're putting here as a milestone, mini milestone number four is this is when your army of dollars actually start doing more than you. This is, this is when the compounding interest really. Starts paying dividends is when actually instead of you working more with your brain, your back, your hands, your army of dollar bills actually starts producing more money than you save.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  And when this happens, we actually call this the crossover point. So I want to give you an example of how to calculate where the crossover point exists for you. So let's go to our favorite financial mutant. Let's look at Manny. Let's assume that Manny makes $50,000 a year, no pay raises. We're just going to assume $50,000 flat salary moving forward. Let's say that he is indeed a mutant, so he's saving 25% of his gross income. He's saving $12,500 per year.

• 20:24Brian Preston?

  And that could be with the employer match because his income is so low. So it's much more realistic with the employer money.

• 20:29Speaker 02

  So the question we're trying to answer is where's the crossover point and what portfolio value does the portfolio add more to itself than Manny is? And in this case, it's $156,250. Well, if you think about saving $12,500 per year, and you think about a reasonable rate of return, around 8% over the long term, it would have taken Manny about nine years to reach the crossover point. And that's okay. Remember, it's supposed to be slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. And then it gets really fast. Well, after almost a decade of savings, now Manny's portfolio can save even harder than he can.

• 21:09Brian Preston?

  So Bo, if you're a visual learner, you probably want to see what we're talking about. Like, how did we calculate this? We've actually wanted to show in real time, what does this crossover point calculation look like?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's pretty easy to figure out. You want to take your annual savings and let's assume that you save $20,000 per year. You want to divide that by your estimated rate of return. And so let's just assume that you're going to assume an 8% rate of return. So 20,000 divided by .08 equals your crossover point. So if you're saving $20,000 a year, you believe that you can earn 8% per year, your crossover point or the point at which your portfolio will save even more than you do is at $250,000.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I see you cranking on the calculator.

• 21:56Brian Preston?

  Just like I always see.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  You're checking the math?

• 21:57Brian Preston?

  Making sure that all the math works out. It's a, it's a super exciting, by the way. And when you do this for yourself, because I know this is going to generate a lot of curiosity for people, I would invite you, I want you to go out to the Moneyverse and celebrate with us because we love, actually, we, we created a screenshot with some of the key people that have been talking to us and sharing their success points.

• 22:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's wild, the Moneyverse, if you're not familiar, go to moneyguy.com/moneyverse. It is our Discord server where we are able to interact with financial mutants in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And one of the threads we have in there is, hey, tell us what's going on in your life. Tell us about the milestones that you're celebrating, whether they be the big milestones or the minis. And look at this, when Petro Hippie said, paid off my husband's parent loan plus.

• 22:44Brian Preston?

  That's awesome.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  Of $163,000 by 30. Still working the personal loan, but it's 20K with a max four and a half, so mainly cruising there, paid off a huge amount of debt. How about Sam? Sam said, I just hit step eight for the first time I raise this year, and we are so excited that now we are finally able to start saving in a 529 for our baby boy. It's an amazing place. A lot of times in our lives, we don't get to talk about money with other folks. A lot of times, money is sort of this taboo subject. That is not the case inside the Moneyverse. So if you want to connect with other like-minded financial mutants to answer your questions, celebrate your wins, or just have a conversation around money, we would encourage you to go

• 23:28Speaker 02

  to moneyguy.com/moneyverse.

• 23:31Brian Preston?

  Hey, and while you're taking in this period of the stall, or your money is starting to work behind you, and you feel like it's, it's somewhat boring, it's also a time that you can catch up and say, hey, what is the whole purpose of this money? Because money is only a tool, so this is a great time to hit the pause button while your money's growing in the background to assess, what is your why? What brings you happiness? Let's actually go through the, an exercise to help you fine tune this.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, Brian, you're, um, so you're good, in my opinion, you're good at a lot of things, but this is one of the ones where I say that you have a, a, a special skill set. Because we tell people this all the time, hey, figure out your why, figure out your why. And people say, well, I don't know how. What, what are the steps that I take? What are the things that I need to do? And so I've heard you say this over and over and over, time and time again. There are ways and there are techniques that you can employ to discover your why. And one of those, and this is one that you, that you say all the time is do a memories audit. What does that mean?

• 24:27Brian Preston?

  Yeah, well, when you think about it, memories audit, I want you to really reflect on, it can be for the last year, it can be for the last five years, it can be the last decade. What are things when you look back on that, man, they just hit you. I mean, they are the blossoming memories that you hear me talk about, that you see us talk about on shows.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  You've written in the book.

• 24:44Brian Preston?

  I've written in the book about, these are the things that just make, they're, they're the fuel for life. And if you can look back on these things, like, look, it doesn't have to be a big thing. Like, of course, the big things are like travel, making memories with the family and those things. That's going to hit a lot of people. But for some people, like Bo loves a cup of coffee.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Love fancy coffee.

• 25:01Brian Preston?

  There are things like that. So you can go through, not that that's his specific why, but I'm telling you, you can even get into the minutia of looking at your day to day interactions and say, what are the things that when I wake up in the morning, I'm excited for? That is part of your why. And we just want to make sure from a financial standpoint, we're putting enough reflection on the why of what gives you happiness, so you can do more of it and do it often. So you can enjoy this life that you have, because you only get this one time on this life. We want to make sure that it is purposeful and that it gives you the best version of yourself.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a really silly example, but you know, my wife and I right now, we've got three young kids. We are indeed inside of the messy middle. And you mentioned, I love like a really good cup of coffee. Well, coffee's not my why, but you know what one of my whys is? Getting to spend meaningful, connective time with my wife. And one of the ways we love to do that is if we escape and get to go have a cup of coffee, just the two of us.

• 25:57Brian Preston?

  That's why you love the coffee.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  That is a valuable thing. And so if you can do that memory audit, you can figure, okay, what are those moments? What are those things? Where are those times? It's going to allow you to reassess, okay, I'm, I'm not just living for my future why. I can actually live and enjoy today in my present why. And another thing you can do to really like hone in on this is begin to set some non-financial goals. And remember, money is not a goal in and of itself. It's simply a tool that allows us to achieve our goals. But maybe you have other goals like, hey, I want to run that 5K, or I want to run that marathon, or I want to start exercising, or I want to start a family, or want to reconnect with family. If you can begin to define and set some of those non-financial goals that don't necessarily

• 26:41Speaker 02

  have a price tag, it will also begin to lift up and amplify for you what your why is.

• 26:46Brian Preston?

  And probably I just got ahead of myself, though, because I definitely wouldn't, when I mentioned the coffee, maybe that's not your why, but it's definitely what I consider a happiness maximizer.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:55Brian Preston?

  And you just hit it, you know, because you spend time with your, your wife drinking coffee. It's good, makes feel good moments. So it probably makes sense that this is why coffee is a maximizer for you. But for a lot of other people, it's going to be maybe for me, I'd mention low and slow. I used to love smoking meat and doing other things with, and I think it's because it creates so much happiness with my friends and my neighbors. Figure out what creates happiness, and let's do more of that and more often as well.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  And what I think is great is the more of these that you can uncover, and the more that you can peel back the layers around the things that genuinely bring you fulfillment, the more you might recognize that you might be able to do those things right now and not have to wait for the future. These are things that can happen in the Monday middle. Brian, you've told me one of your favorite things in the world, and you do it here, you do it when you travel, is going on these walks. We, we have all been the benefactors of this, is you're now doing these tangent times. That's something you don't have to wait for retirement to be able to go on walks. You'd have to, and you get to do it by yourself, you get to do it with your spouse. If you can begin, I would, I would consider that probably a happiness maximizer for you. It's one that you've uncovered that's really

• 28:04Speaker 02

  been sort of a recent thing in the past couple of years. But now I'd argue is probably something that'll be with you for the rest of your life.

• 28:10Brian Preston?

  Well, it helps you physically, it helps you mental health, it helps with his sleep. I mean, it's amazing. I mean, we live in a beautiful world. And then for me, just getting out there and also just being around people. What's funny is because we have a park so close to the office. It's just, it's just fun being out, not only in nature, but also being around others and just enjoying the moment and realizing, cause sometimes I think is a financial mutant. We get so busy focusing on what can be or what we're building to. If you can take a moment to be more present in your life, to understand what is beautiful around you right now. I think you'll understand this happiness maximizer exercise a lot better than you would have.

• 28:49Speaker 02

  And remember, one of the things in the Monday middle is you don't, you don't recognize what's happening while it's happening, but you notice it after the fact. It's one of the reasons why, if you go to moneyguy.com/resources and you play with our compound interest calculator. One of the things that we highlight for you is the boiling point. It's, it's this inflection point on the exponential graph where instead of moving slow and somewhat linear, you now move exponentially. It's where your assets literally start working harder than you do because of time and compound growth. What you're trying to do in the mundane middle, wherever you are on your journey, is you're trying to work towards that boiling point. Cause once you hit that,

• 29:31Speaker 02

  then you're off to the races. Then you start doing the annual net worth statements. You're like, holy cow. How did my net worth go up that much over the past year? Holy cow. When did I get to this level of financial success? It happens slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. And then before you know it, you wake up and say, holy cow, how I get here.

• 29:48Brian Preston?

  I mean, it's such a beautiful thing how it all integrates and works together is cause you know, there's the, the, the famous adage of watch pot never boil. So here we are talking about wealth creation can feel mundane and boring, but it's not truly, nothing is not going on during those years while it's building in the background. It's just that it's building up the energy under the surface, exactly what you're talking about with the exponential growth. And if you can just stay the course, always be buying, be consistent with your discipline and your behaviors, you will be rewarded. This is what I'm telling you, wealth building, true wealth building is slow and steady work. And if you do this right, you go hit the boiling point and you'll be eating lobster or you'll be eating brisket. Or if you're smoking low and slow, like I've been talking about with this wealth creation.

• 30:34Brian Preston?

  Obviously, we're hungry people as we're creating all this wealth building opportunities. But I think you're starting to see the visuals of what this means is that don't get distracted in this consumption, fast-paced society we live in. Understand who you are and what the true journey to wealth building is so you can do it that much faster and with that much purpose and not get distracted.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Now, what's going to happen is, is you're going to do that and you're going to continue moving along in your journey, but there likely will become a point where you say, holy cow, how did I get here? I mean, I remember where I started and I don't remember necessarily things moving quickly, but I woke up one day and now all of a sudden, a number of things have happened. The numbers have gotten really big. The complexity showed up, even though I wasn't looking for it. And I don't have the same time that I used to have. I'm worried that things are falling through the cracks. If you begin to find yourself in that place, that might be an indication that you've reached the boiling point. And this might even be a time when you want to consider taking the relationship to the next level, not trying to navigate your financial life alone, but rather having a partner come

• 31:37Speaker 02

  alongside you to make sure that you're doing money better.

• 31:40Brian Preston?

  Well, Bo, you mentioned, even if you're trying, your goal is to keep things as simple as possible, success is going to create complexity. And a lot of you will quickly realize, oh my gosh, this is the first time I've ever done this. I'm worried, I don't know what I don't know and I'm going to screw this thing up. Don't worry, don't panic. This is why we'll leave the porch light on for you. We've done this for thousands of you so that you can live your best life. Let your money, I mean, your army of dollars do all the heavy lifting for you. Let you get the dividend of all your previous hard work and just enjoy your life. That's what we do for clients is we build that peace of mind. I'm Brian, this is Bo. I want you to go out to moneyguy.com. You can download our resources, find out what it's like to become a client. We're going to keep creating this content. Money Guy.

• 32:26Brian Preston?

  Almost said Brian and Bo again.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  The Money Guy Show is hosted by Brian Preston and Bo Hanson. Brian and Bo are partners with Abound Wealth Management. Abound Wealth Management is a registered investment advisory firm regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission in accordance and compliance with the securities laws and regulations. Abound Wealth Management does not render or offer to render personalized investment or tax advice through The Money Guy Show. The information provided is for informational purposes only, may not be suitable for all investors, and does not constitute financial, tax, investment, or legal advice. All investments involve a degree of risk, including the risk of loss.